Rieren held her blade high over her head. She cycled Essence, over and over, pulling on the power that was hers. On the flow of the water, wind, lightning. On the strength of the storm.

On Heaven’s Cleave.

Rippling Blade made her swords length extend towards the very sky. A straight razor of shimmering, gleaming white that pierced the clouded dome far above. Rieren applied all her Aspects at once into that enormously long blade. Water and wind, lightning and storm, Divine to stitch it all together into the shape that her ascending spirit demanded.

Crackling, jagged arcs of whitish blue flickered all along the length of the enormous blade, starting from where she held the hilt to the very heavens. Water began swirling around the column, empowered by the rapidly whirling wind, faster and faster until it was a churning funnel drilling into the dome capping the world.

In moments, Rieren had an inverted mountain of a waterspout rising off her sword, towering inconceivably high. It was laced with lightning, the water turning stormy dark the faster it rotated.

“Are you ready, Markand?” Rieren yelled over the wind whipping everything into a maelstrom fury.

The Clanmaster was staring up at her power with a slack look. Another disbelieving moment. Oh, how Rieren loved that look on his face. She could get drunk off it.

He jerked his head down to stare at her. His eyes were wide. Wild. Then he summoned his Domain around him. The greenish-yellow vapour coughed up, the hands within materializing seconds later to completely shroud him from her sight. He probably had a concentrated Essence armour on top of that too, plus potentially some other techniques or tricks up his sleeve.

Not that any of that mattered. Rieren knew her strength. Knew that, after what he had dealt to her, Reaver Stance took her way beyond anything he could hope to match.

“Are you still in there, Markand?” Rieren asked. “Or did you use those hands of yours to trick us all and escape to supposed safety?”

One of the hands shifted just a bit, revealing his annoyed face. Not just annoyed, desperate too. “Come at me!”

Rieren grinned. She raised her hands to their fullest height.

For a second, she wondered what others thought of the sight. She imagined Kalvia and Zhalen looking on, Remis Sharan staring from the tree her head was embedded in, the Banishedborn and the old Forborne Emperor forced to pay attention to the enormous power matching what they displayed, at least in terms of spectacle.

With a scream of fury, with a yell that promised she was about to end this, Rieren slammed the whole edifice down. She slashed her blade before her in a vertical arc. The waterspout fell on Markand like a tower collapsing.

By the time it struck down on the Clanmaster, all the water had turned dark as a storm cloud. Upon immediate contact, the entire, mountain-sized column of storm turned into a massive combination of lighting, water, and wind. A scroll had once told her that a new Aspect was born in that combination. Momentarily formed, utterly destructive beyond anything else Rieren could channel.

Plasma Aspect.

With wind and water vapour expanding and heated to such a degree by the continued application of lighting, the entire column Rieren had crushed down turned into plasma. Light and power with enough fury to rival the sun itself. There could be no chance for the Clanmaster to survive.

It was difficult to see anything in that kind of illumination, but Rieren simply switched to her spiritual sight. Her attack ripped apart the land. Trees were vaporized to nothing, the earth cracking and melting apart in, rocks turned to dust in a fraction of a heartbeat. A vortex of wind ripped and scythed anything even close to her column of pure plasma to oblivion.

Rieren could only hope no one was in her range of Heaven’s Cleave. At least, no one from Silvas or Clanmistress Avathene’s contingents.

When her power finally ended, when Heaven’s Cleave finished leaving its mark, the world no longer looked the same. In the middle of the tournament grounds, Rieren had carved up a depthless gorge that stretched on for leagues and leagues. Where molten magma flowed into the lightless bottom, where the air sparked with stray sparks of lightning, where the vapour still churned with enough heat to slough flesh straight off the bones.

Rieren took a deep breath. Invigorating, to let loose the kind of power she was capable of. “You have one minute to answer, Markand,” she shouted, making her voice ring as far as she could. “One minute until I proclaim myself the victor of this little contest of ours.”

Save for the aftereffects of Heaven’s Cleave, the minute passed in silence. There was no response from anyone. Not the Markand Clanmaster. Not anybody who had been watching the proceedings. Rieren wasn’t simply the winner of the battle against the Clanmaster.

She had eradicated any and all trace of her opponent.

New Achievement!

You have crafted a unique Aspect! Momentary though it was, your mastery over other Aspects has enabled you to combine them into something breathtaking.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Rewards

* 1 Level

* 100 Essence Crystals

* 10 Credits

* 1 Perk Point

Tutting, Rieren turned away. She hadn’t even received an achievement for killing Markand, unfortunately, but at least the system had recognized that she had created a new Aspect.

“That was…” Kalvia shook her head. Her eyes weren’t on Rieren when they met again. The Empress was looking past Rieren at the site of devastation caused by Heaven’s Cleave.

“Uh, that was mightily well done,” Zhalen said. He looked like he couldn’t be certain if he was supposed to be awed, relieved, or just annoyed. “Very devastating indeed.”

“Well, we won,” Rieren said. A simple statement in the face of an overwhelmingly simple outcome. Just what Rieren liked. She grinned at the look on Kalvia’s face. “Did you ever doubt me?”

Kalvia shook her head. “Not even for a heartbeat. But to think that could have been what I experienced at the tournament…”

“You can worry about that when you are sitting on the throne. Right now, we have a battle to win and a proclamation to make. We need to be victorious.”

They all pulled their gaze away from the destroyed battlefield and nodded. Time to get to work.

***

As it turned out, the rest of the battle was already ending. At least, the Mortal side of it was.

Rieren’s faction had all but secured victory.

Led by Oromin Tarciel, Silvas Fraile, and Rykion Karlosyne, the forces of the Empress routed the imperial court’s cultivators soon enough. Rieren and Kalvia taking down some of the Avatars from behind had greatly accelerated their push towards victory.

This was further assisted when certain contingents ended up joining the battle. Ceraline Selvier eventually showed up and killed a few imperia court cultivators almost like she had been busy with other things and killing a few men in the Exalted realm had been an afterthought.

There were reports of former Lionshard Sect disciples joining the fight as well. Cerill Astor had taken a stand for the Empress, refusing to assist anyone from the imperial court, even if he didn’t partake in the battle itself. Rollo and Serace were both more hands-on, joining the fight directly after informing the Clanmistress of their intentions.

Rieren had no doubt Amalyse was a big part of their former sect members coming together. She was grinning with too much self-satisfaction for that to not be the case.

“We’ve routed most of them, save for the holdouts here and there,” Oromin reported.

They were all meeting at the imperial clan’s campground. Clanmistress Avathene had been redirected here as the Stannerig campground had been razed in the course of the battle. Deaths had been few, but the survivors all looked ashamed. The Clanmistress couldn’t care less, though.

As soon as Rieren had killed the Markand Clanmaster, Kalvia had sent out a message to update the others. The reply had come personally from the Clanmistress when she had appeared moments later. A few minutes later, Oromin and Silvas arrived as well. The battle was winding down.

“The imperial court is nearly finished, then,” the Clanmistress said with no small amount of satisfaction.

“Save for one small matter.” Kalvia looked past them all again, at the battles still raging on. At the continued destruction that forced them all to be wary, just so they didn’t inadvertently get caught up in it. “The Banishedborn.”

Rieren nodded. “So long as they are alive and in power, they can continue challenging us for supremacy in the Elderlands.”

“Speaking of supremacy,” Silvas said. “What about Vanharron? We’ve been routing the imperial court forces, yes, but if they fall back to Vanharron itself, then that’s going to be another headache down the line.”

“Fear not,” Kalvia said. “Vanharron is in the imperial clan’s lands.”

“Yes, but the Avatars are from the imperial clan too, yes? We’ve seen where most of their loyalties lie. Are you certain the rest of your clan, especially those who have witnessed nothing of the Trials of Ascendance or anything we have faced here, will accept you, Your Majesty?”

“I have plans for that. It will not be easy, and I cannot promise my plans will come to successful fruition, but leave that to me, for the time being. What we need to worry about is winning completely here.”

“Yes,” Rieren said. “Let us circle back to the main issue at hand.”

Batcat agreed with a soft, tired meow. She petted its head. Call of the Past had ended moments ago, and now the little winged kitten appeared exhausted. She was a little surprised it hadn’t dozed off yet. Perhaps it was excited at the ongoing proceedings.

“The Banishedborn.” Avathene tutted, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “I fail to see how we can affect the outcome of those battles.”

A valid concern. Rieren had difficulty seeing how exactly they could help. What Rieren had done to the Markand Clanmaster would look like playground bullying compared to what the Banishedborn could do to them if they tried to fight one directly.

Fighting a Fated realm cultivator? Even if Call of the Past took Rieren to something like Late-Ascendant realm, even if a wound activated Reaver Stance, she would stand no chance.

What hope did the rest of them have?

An even worse problem was that they were all looking to her to solve the issue. Among them all, it was Rieren who had the greatest experience in dealing with Banishedborn.

“We need to take note of all the constituents of everything going on,” Rieren said.

Silvas slapped a fist into an open hand. “Of course. And then we’ll understand how we can manipulate the conditions of the battle without needing to interfere directly.”

“Conditions…” Avathene mused. “Such as the participants, the battlefield itself, perhaps even the implications of the battle.”

“Participants.”

They all looked around. Kalvia’s eyes were shining with a strange fervour.

“We know who are participating,” she said, her voice rising with excitement. “The old Emperor and the godless Banishedborn on our side.”

“Starloper,” Rieren offered.

The Empress nodded. “Against them are, what, seven Banishedborn?” She shook her head. “Too many. But there’s one more we’ve forgotten.”

Rieren’s eyes widened. “The idiot.”

“Yes!”

“What do you mean?” Avathene asked.

Rieren left Kalvia to explain. She knew just how to make use of the realization the Empress had come to. There was no time to waste. It was hard to fathom that Starloper and the old Emperor had held on for this long, that the battles were still ongoing. But if Rieren wished to see the day saved in their favour, then she had to act. Now.

“Are you going all by yourself?” Kalvia asked as Rieren hurried off. “You sure you can do this?”

“Trust me, I know what I must do.” Rieren looked back momentarily to her, to all the others on their side, to Amalyse and her old sect mates arriving at the scene. They looked a little confused, but Rieren flashed her friends a big, confident smile. “You know what you must do. You know you need to set up the next stage. Leave the rest to me.”

Kalvia nodded resolutely. Rieren hurried off, letting them handle the logistics of what needed to follow while she executed her plan. A plan that needed her to get to Remis Sharan.